Doing it the Right Way:
The Regional Approach!by David Stanowski
24 September 2012

Yesterday, we exposed the "urban myth"that building mixed-income developments
in high-poverty neighborhoods magically transforms them into acceptable
low-poverty census tracts suitable for Public Housing. (The
Mixed-Income Scam)

For over three years, the GOGP has maintained that the GHA must use a regional approach
to Public Housing site selection, building only in high-opportunity census
tracts. The GHA has consistently ignored this mandate until the new Vice-Chairman, Tony Brown, took on the
task of developing a regional plan (Plan2).

Working in
conjunction with Dr. Kirk
McClure, they ranked all 66 census tracts in Galveston
County. 21 census tracts were
rated as high-opportunity neighborhoods, suitable for
Public Housing, offering the regional plan ample sites. Only three of the
high-opportunity census tracts are on
the Island (7255, 7257, 7260).

The mission is to build 529 Public Housing units in these 21 census
tracts. If they were allocated equally, only 25
Public Housing units would need to be built in each of the 21 high-opportunity
census tracts, offering opportunity to Public Housing residents with minimal impact on the host neighborhoods.

As expected, building small
numbers of Public Housing units (without any
market-rate units) in low-poverty neighborhoods does raise the poverty
levels slightly, but the impact
is absorbed easily and the poverty remains low enough to
allow the neighborhood to retain its high-opportunity status for all of
its residents.

Compare this ideal performance (details and calculations shown below) to the myth that large
mixed-income developments built in high-poverty neighborhoods can
perform satisfactorily.

Building 25
Public Housing units in each of Galveston's high-opportunity census
tracts:

Assumptions:

Each unit will house 2.5 residents on average.

The residents in the PH units will be below the poverty level.

Census Tract 7255:

Census Tract 7255 has a population of 1,118 and 1.67% of that population is below
poverty.

The calculations clearly show that building
100% PH in high-opportunity census tracts, using a regional approach
that spreads the units across a large number of census tracts, will
definitely AFFH, while building mixed-income in high-poverty census
tracts will NOT!

Merely
repeating this process for the other 18 high-opportunity census tracts
on the Mainland should create an ideal regional Public Housing plan.